Dr David W Evans
, Retired Consultant in Cardiology, says: “Human organ transplantation is Wrong because it necessitates the abuse of the dying or harming the healthy. Doctors should not be involved in such things… I don’t know how any doctor can operate on his patient not for his good but knowingly to do him harm.”[more]

OPPOSE
ORGAN
DONATION

Dr David J Hill
, Retired consultant anaesthetist, says: “The Diagnosis of Death for Transplant Purposes has no international consensus and in the UK… depends upon testing only a few cubic centimetres of tissue in the brainstem for loss of function… Live organs can only come from living bodies. ”[more]

OPPOSE
ORGAN
DONATION

Dr Paul A Byrne
, neonatalogist and pediatrician, says: “In order to be suitable for transplant, (heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and pancreas) need to be removed from the donor before respiration and circulation cease. Otherwise, these organs are not suitable, since damage to the organs occurs within a brief time after circulation of blood with oxygen stops.”[more]

OPPOSE
ORGAN
DONATION

Dr John B Shea
, retired diagnostic radiologist & Fellow of Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, says: “Many physicians have serious and well-considered concerns about morality of human organ transplantation … the general public has not been properly informed about what really happens when organs are retrieved.”[more]

OPPOSE
ORGAN
DONATION

Bereaved mother
(Bernice Jones) says: “ Brain death is not death” and “organ donation is very deceptive”. “Families are led to believe that their loved ones are dead, but in fact they are alive. You must be alive to be a vital organ donor.”[more]

OPPOSE
ORGAN
DONATION

Nurse Ellen B Linde
, senior graduate teaching assistant, University of Scranton, says: “Some, believing that removing vital organs is what kills the patient, view organ donation… as an act of killing… not all nurses are comfortable with a value system driven primarily by the needs of transplant recipients rather than by the needs of the potential donor.”[more]

OPPOSE
ORGAN
DONATION

Earl E. Appleby Jr
, Director, Citizens United Resisting Euthanasia, says: “Anyone unwise enough to have signed an organ donor card also has legitimate cause for concern. Would you trust a doctor who regards your body “not as an organism in need of healing but as a container of biological useful materials” … That’s exactly what organ donors do. ”[more]

OPPOSE
ORGAN
DONATION

Michael Potts
, medical ethicist, says: “Any action that directly causes the death of a patient, even if it is for the good of others, opposes the goal of medicine not to harm that individual patient… It is precisely whether transplantation kills the donor that is the key issue that cuts to the heart of the goals of medicine.”[more]

Was Not Dead!

Rom Houben

A Belgian man diagnosed as comatose for 23 years was in fact awake and conscious the whole time, doctors have revealed.

Rom Houben, 46, had no way to tell his family and doctors he could see them and hear what they were saying after waking up following a bad car accident in 1983.

He spent more than two decades in excruciating isolation until a neurologist realised he was not in a coma — just unable to communicate.
“I dreamt myself away,” Mr Houben was quoted as saying in British newspapers.

“I became a witness to my own suffering as doctors and nurses tried to speak with me until they gave up all hope.”

The former engineering student and martial arts enthusiast, now 46, told German newspaper, Der Spiegel that he meditated to pass the long years trapped in his own body.

He remains haunted by the moment he first woke from the accident and realised something was wrong.

Using a specially-adapted computer to type messages, Mr Houben has been able to describe the ordeal he endured for more than two decades. “I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,” he said.

“I became a witness to my own suffering as doctors and nurses tried to speak with me until they gave up all hope.”

“I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me – it was my second birth. All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.”

Doctors at the time diagnosed Mr Houben as being in a persistent vegetative state after running eye, verbal and motor tests and finding him unresponsive. The diagnosis remained unchallenged until 2006 when neurologist Steven Laureys conducted hi-tech scans and found Mr Houben’s brain was functioning normally.

The case is only being reported now because Dr Laureys has published it in a medical journal, believing other cases may exist where people have been diagnosed incorrectly.

But until Laureys’ research moves out of the experimental phase and into standard testing at hospitals, experts say there may be some rare situations where doctors still miss the signs that someone is completely paralyzed but fully aware.

“If there’s anything we’ve learned in the past couple of years, is that we have to be very cautious about prognosticating; providing a severe prognosis early on,” said Dr. Michael DeGeorgia, director of the Neurocritical Care Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. ...

DeGeorgia said determining a person’s state of consciousness after a severe brain injury can be a subtle and difficult process, especially shortly after an accident when people are often on heavy pain medication.

(Editor: This is another case that calls into question the readiness of doctors to write people off because of severe brain injuries or supposed “brain death”. Clearly, with suitable care and treatment, such persons can recuperate.
(NB: My emphasis in certain paragraphs)